THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE

This strange and disconnected series of dreams chronicling a group of well-to-do friends’ attempts to have dinner together surprisingly became Buñuel’s most commercially successful film. Having announced his retirement from film-making in the early ’70s after being struck by the fear he was repeating himself, Buñuel was inspired to pick up a camera again and make this tale of repeating circumstances, hypocrisy, dreams within dreams and awkward social situations after hearing a friend’s story of a catastrophe-ridden dinner party. Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive.